Explosive



- Patented a. 17, 1922.

'D STATES TENNEY L. DAVIS, OF SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS.

EXPLOSI'VE.

No Drawing.

Application filed April 25, 1922. Serial No. 556,524.

(FILED manna 'rnn not or MARCH 3, 1883, 22 srar. L., 625.

To all whom it may concern:

, Be it known that I, TENNEY L. DAVIS, a citizen of the United States,and a resident of :Somerville, county of Middlesex, and State ofMassachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Explosives, of Which thefollowing is aspecification.

The invention described herein may be used by the Government, or any ofits oflicers or employees in prosecution of work for the Government, orby any other person in the United States, without payment to me of anyroyalty thereon.

The subject of this invention is an explosive and the invention relatesmore specificall to a smokeless propellant powder.

The main object of the invention is the production of an explosivepossessing the characteristic of progressive burning which will notdeteriorate when stored for considerable lengths of time. 7

The explosive pentaerythrite tetranitrate, frequently known astetranitropentaerythrite has'been used in primers, detonators anddetonating fuses but it is also especially fitted for use in themanufacture of smokeless propellant powder because of its great chemicalstability, it being apparently not subject to spontaneous decompositionduring storage as are nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. Likenitroglycerine it contains an excess of oxygen and, for that reason itsubmits to being mixed with carbonaceous and combustible materials forthe preparation of smokelesspowder which will burn at a lowertemperature than pentaerythrite tetranitrate itself and which willproduce a greater ballistic eifectper unit of Weight of combinednitro-group oxygen that it' contains.

A propellant powder in order to be satisfactory ballistically must behomogeneous (or at least), burning progressively at a rate and for aperiod of time which can be regulated accurately. Such a powder can beprepared from pentaerythrite tetranitrate by incorporatin with it othersubstances with which it orms a plastic homogeneous mass that can bemolded into grains of the desired shape, and a smokeless propel- 5i lantpowder consisting of pentaerythrite tetranitrate incorporated with otherderivative of pentaerythrite, in particular the henzoate, andespeciallythe mixture of any or all of the mono-,, di-, tri-, and tetrabenzoates,5:

has been made the subject of an earlier patent application, Serial No.462,028, filed April 16, 1921.

I find that pentaerythrite tetrabenzoate alone incorporated withpentaerythrite tet- 6 ranitrate gives plastic masses that show atendency to become brittle and crack, and that pentaerythrite cinnamatealone with pentaerythrite tetranitrate gives a hardand very toughmaterial. A mixture of these 6 two materials yields with pentaerythritetetranitrate a niass of the desired toughness and plasticity.

I claim:

1. An explosive composition, including 7 pentaerythrite tetranitrate,pentaerythrite tetrabenzoate and pentaerythrite cinnamate as in edients.

2. n explosivecomposition, comprising pentaerythrite tetranitrate,incorporated 7 with a mixtureof pentaerythrite tetra-benzoate andpentaerythrite cinnamate.

TENNEY L. DAVIS.

